


Let's end this charade

by byeolight



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Drabble, M/M, everything is implied lmao, i hope to expand on it one day, pinch of fluff, this was actually written 5 years ago and nothing really happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:29:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byeolight/pseuds/byeolight
Summary: Three years into their friendship, he decides to confess.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Kudos: 19





	Let's end this charade

Three years into their friendship, he decides to confess.

“I’m gay.” Baekhyun blurts. He’s nervous, and he plays with the hem of his shirt, eyes trained to the ground as he chews his lip in anticipation. He doesn’t want to meet Chanyeol’s eyes, worried at what he might see; disgust is a plausible possibility, but he’s not so sure. He’s not ready to find out yet, so he keeps his gaze down as he waits for a response. There’s a long pause, the silence is so overwhelming Baekhyun can feel the dull throb of dejection settling in his chest before he even gets a reply.

“No matter what,” he hears Chanyeol say softly, “I’m still your best friend.”

“Really?” he breathes a sigh of relief, and only then does he allow himself to look up at Chanyeol, who’s a whole head taller than him, so he has to crane his neck.

“Of course, we’ve been friends for ages. Why would you think I would care who you liked.” Chanyeol’s grinning, and his mouth stretches so widely across his face Baekhyun wonders how one person could smile so much. He likes it anyway.

“Three years isn’t that long, if you think about it.” he shoots back, hand wringing around his wrists nervously. 

“I’m offended you would think so little of me.” Chanyeol laughs, but unlike Baekhyun, whose eyes curve to form small crescents whenever he finds something funny, Chanyeol’s are just always so big, and his left eye has a tendency to twitch, quite unceremoniously he may add, but it’s adorably awkward all the same. Come to think of it, Chanyeol has been lanky and clumsy since they first met, but possesses a voice so deep it sounds like he’s swallowed a bass drum. Six months down the line of their friendship, the initial intimidated reaction toward his friend’s deep timbre dissolves, as he discovered that Chanyeol laughs like an idiot. Using his whole body, the laugh is almost soundless, punctuated only by occasional wheezes. Baekhyun shouldn’t find it endearing.

“Come on, let’s get something to eat.” Chanyeol diverts the attention from the topic at hand and quickly grabs Baekhyun’s wrist, while the latter can only roll his eyes and follow. There’s an unspoken tension that neither of them are ready to face. Chanyeol guides the brunet with a hasty determination to get answers, Baekhyun follows with an unwilling obligation to provide them.

Ten minutes later, they’re both seated in a small café, sitting in their usual spot in the corner. It’s quiet, and Baekhyun doesn’t know what to do, even though it’s not uncomfortable, he can’t find a way to break the silence.

“How did you know?” Chanyeol asks hesitantly, stumbling over his words. Baekhyun snorts bitterly, shaking his head as he drags his spoon along the chilled ridges of his melting ice cream.

“I had a girlfriend,” He mutters. The smaller brunet digests the image of Chanyeol’s widening eyes, rapid blinking, and slur of words bunching up in his mouth, refusing to spill out coherently. Of course he’s surprised, who wouldn’t be? Baekhyun is a small boy for his age; although average in height and broad enough in shoulder width, his overall frame is soft and fragile, and he’s often told that the lilt in his tone always gave off a feminine charm.

“You.” Chanyeol states rather monotonously. “Who was it?” he asks after Baekhyun gives him a sarcastic grin. Baekhyun laughs and looks at his best friend straight in the eye, refusing to relent to his strong gaze for even a minute, fearing that maybe he’d miss a split second of his reaction.

“Taeyeon.”

It starts with a twitch in Chanyeol’s left eye, and Baekhyun purses his lips.

“Mhm,” he hums in agreement.

“Kim Taeyeon?” Chanyeol clarifies, voice barely lowering in pitch, but Baekhyun notices anyway.

“That one.”

“The senior?”

“Yes.”

“You must be kidding me, Baek.”

“Not at all.”

“But she’s dating Tiffany.” Chanyeol speaks with wild gesticulations, seeming not so affected by Baekhyun’s confession, but rather frazzled by the fact that Baekhyun’s dated the most desired girl in school.

“I know.” Baekhyun laughs with an air of mockery directed at no one but himself. “Funny how that works, right? The most popular girl in school turns out to be gay, and the only boyfriend she ever had was also…” his voice dies out as he speaks and it takes a piece of his previous bravado with him, replacing it with a tinge of fear that someone might overhear.

“Never mind.” He shakes away the thought and tries to divert the attention away from the topic. “Do you like your ice cream?” he asks politely, too politely for Chanyeol to take him seriously. Baekhyun hasn’t been conscience of his manners around Chanyeol since the first week they met.

“So how did the both of you find out?” Chanyeol asks, fully engaged in the conversation.

Baekhyun clears his throat to get rid of what could be a second wave of embarrassment building up.

“I don’t know.” he mumbles

“Baekhyun.”

“Really, Chanyeol.”

“Baekhyun.” Chanyeol tries again to weasel information out of his friend, whose lips are squeezed tightly, literally.

“One day,” he starts, breaking from the intense stare that Chanyeol is giving him. “She tried to kiss me.” 

Chanyeol snorts loudly. The only person he’s ever seen Taeyeon suck face with is Tiffany and it’s the oddest thing to picture it in someone’s head.

Some fashion week show was on the TV.  
“I pulled away.” He wrings his hands nervously, trying to will away the heat rushing to his cheeks, “and she asks me, ‘how was that?’”

Chanyeol’s lower lip trembles as he holds in a laugh.

“And I looked at her and suddenly I had the weirdest feeling, like I was kissing my sister or my mum or something and I couldn’t handle it, so I told her ‘really bad.’”

Chanyeol snorts in response. Baekhyun freezes, too caught up in his anecdote to realize that; maybe he’s gone too far because he certainly can’t tell Chanyeol that the only reason he chose to break up with Taeyeon before officially coming out, was because of Chanyeol.

He gulps and tries again,

“And then she said, we should break up because my parents think you’re prettier than me. So we did.” He jokes weakly.

He hopes it’s believable because Baekhyun has never been an adequate liar, but thankfully, it’s not too far from the truth and Chanyeol raises an eyebrow.

“Really.” He laughs.

“Uhm, yeah.”

“Well,” Chanyeol says nothing; he’s said practically nothing for the past twenty minutes. He still hasn’t quite reacted to Baekhyun’s coming out and the brunet doesn’t know how to feel about that, but he chooses not to push the topic, and instead, pushes his bowl of vanilla ice cream to his friend.

“I’m not hungry.” He states

“That’s okay,” Chanyeol says, grinning from ear to ear, he cocks his head, thinking for a moment and repeats it, this time, slowly, a bit more forceful on the syllables, like he’s trying to push something through, “that’s okay.”

He doesn’t say anything but Baekhyun can feel something in his body releasing all the tension in his muscles that he didn’t know were locked, and he grins. His eyes are curving into crescents and he looks at Chanyeol, 

“Okay.” he repeats, watching as Chanyeol takes a bite of his ice cream.

Chanyeol twirls his spoon in his ice cream, looking at Baekhyun with a mischievous demeanour.

“You know, they’re right.” He muses. Baekhyun cocks his head confusedly.

“Who?” he asks.

Chanyeol laughs, something he’s never been able to do quietly, due to his deep voice, but it’s adorable to Baekhyun nonetheless.

“You are prettier than her, to me at least.”

“I thought you said she was the prettiest person in school!” Baekhyun exclaims, laughing. 

Chanyeol hums in disagreement, shaking his head. “No,” he corrects. “I said girl, she’s the prettiest girl in school.”

“No different.” Baekhyun states, but he feels a nervous breath escape from his lips because he knows that Chanyeol is about to say something that may bring his non-existent hopes up and transform them into something tangible.

“But if I had to choose, you outshine her any day.”

“And that means…?” Baekhyun trails off.

“I used to say that if I could date any girl, I’d choose Taeyeon,” Chanyeol’s grin widens, “but I don’t really date girls, you know.”


End file.
